London Zoo

We are lucky enough to live on one of Kensington's sunny garden squares. Living in the centre of a city, a garden square is a pretty good compromise between having your own patch of green, and the convenience of being 'in town'; you don't have to pay the multi-million pound fortune required for the luxury of mowing your own lawn - or indeed, have to mow your own lawn - but you still have access to uncrowded fresh(ish) air and a safe place for the kids to run around.

You get to hear the birds in the morning (until they are drowned out by the sound of the ever-increasing traffic as rush-hour kicks in, anyway), and you get to see green other than that on the District Line Tube signs. And, if you are lucky enough to live on our garden square, you get to occassionally glimpse a vixen bringing up 4 fox cubs.

Now, don't get me wrong. I grew up in the country, with all that implies. I know fox are classified as vermin. But those fox cubs are just so damned purty...

And of course, the Boys adore them. Although given the amount of time she spends dodging their attentions, I wouldn't be surprised if the vixen is making plans to take her litter and move somewhere a little quieter. In fact, this would probably be a wise course of action in any case, since one of our close neighbours is one of the Huntin', Shootin' and Fishin' brigade, and spends most of her autumn and winter weekends on a horse chasing our foxy family's country cousins with dogs. Or did, before the powers that be put a stop to that sort of thing. However, I still don't think our neighbour would take too kindly to the knowledge that these audacious creatures have moved in to taunt her, only yards from her back window.

I don't mind them, personally. I could do without their barking at night (if you've never heard it, think baby crying wildly. A yard outside your window. Wakes you up with a bit of a start, I can tell you...), and I'm not so sure I would be happy for the Boys to be outside in the garden on their own with an overprotective vixen and pups, but overall I like this reminder that much as we try, the Wilderness creeps in to the most groomed parts of the city.

But.

There are limits.

And this evening, I saw a mouse in our kitchen.

Not even a cute, brown country mouse up for the weekend and doing a bit of a touristic explore of one of London's leafier districts. No, a dirty, grimy, cute enough if you see one running over the rails in the tube station mouse, but generally a germ infested creature that you do not - under any circumstances - want running around your flat.

And the worse thing is, I think it might have been here for a couple of days. I've caught glimpses, you see. Out of the corner of my eye. You know; you think see something moving, but when you look more closely, there's nothing there. Although, in fact... there is. (Shudders theatrically)

As far as I can tell, it's trapped in the walk-in cupboard at the end of the kitchen right now. Clearly, this is not a sustainable situation, not least because our fridge is also in there, and our washing machine too. Right now I am reduced to knocking - knocking! - on the door before I go in to fetch anything, in the hope that will scare it enough to hide away and not run helter skelter into rest of the kitchen. (I can almost imagine it sitting there behind the cupboards, hearing my knock and shouting "What?! I'm busy! Pooing being your tumbledryer, if you must know! Now sod off, and leave me alone!")

I'm hoping it will stay there until I can go and get a trap tomorrow morning. I'm also hoping against hope that it just wandered in off the street through an open door (not as impossible as it might seem; we had some work done out the back of the flat a couple of days back and it could easily have come in then - please God), and that once it's gone, that will be the end of it.

Note my use of the phrase 'once it's gone'. Confidently said, don't you think? Actually, I have no idea how I'm going to achieve that. I have drawn up battle plans to head off to our local hardware store first thing in search of a trap that will effectively take care of it and magic it away to some first class mouse resort (think Club Med for small creatures), where it will be so happy it won't ever want to come back to grotty old London town. Failing that, a trap that will kill it humanely - and then Husband can dispose of it. Of course, all of this will have to be done secretly, since if the Boys know that they have their own 'pet' in place, and that the wicked parents are planning on removing it, mutiny would be bound to ensue.

So. An invisible trap, that the Boys can't see. Which Husband can deal with. And then get the remains out without my seeing them. Not too much to ask, is it?

And who knows? Maybe, he can give the remains to the Fox. Waste not want not, after all...